Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

“How can it be empty?” she asked him. “There is a Lady, or someone who claims to be. She visits me every year. She sends my father gold and soldiers. I’ve had nurses and tutors. They’ve taught me all about this place, the staff, the servants, and who or what belongs in every room. How can it be deserted?”

“The Lady must have another residence,” Coryn said. “A manor, maybe.”

“Then why don’t I know about it?”

“I don’t know,” he said. Then he went still, as if straining to hear something faint and far away.

“After the sun goes down,” he said, “Selena says, look below.”

Merris frowned. “What? What does she mean?”

“Look below, she says. That’s all.”

“There are dungeons below,” said Merris. “Caves, really. Part of the river flows through them.”

“Then that’s where we’ll look,” he said. “We can rest while the daylight lasts. There’s no food here and I don’t trust the water, but I brought provisions.”

He held up the rucksack he had brought from Forgotten Keep. It was bulging. “Bread from the bakery in town,” he said, “and the water we brought from the spring at last night’s camp, and a few odds and ends. We’ll be comfortable while we wait.”

Merris was not hungry, but she was thirsty. She sipped from one of the water bottles while Coryn ate half a still-warm, crusty loaf with cheese melted inside.

It smelled so good that Merris was tempted after all. She managed a few bites. They helped more than she would have expected. She felt stronger.

When they had both had enough to eat and drink, Coryn said, “I saw beds below. Maybe we should get some proper rest.”

Merris shook her head. “I need the sun,” she said. “You go, if you’re too tired.”

“No,” he said. “I’ll stay with you.”

“But your Companion—”

“She’s down below,” he said. “She’ll be safe.”

“As long as it’s daylight,” Merris said, and shivered. He looked as pale as she felt.

They propped themselves against the parapet, side by side but not touching. Merris tilted her head back and let the sun bathe her face. Her eyelids drooped shut.

“Merris.”

She started awake. Coryn was bending over her. In the confusion of sudden waking, she wondered why he had been bathing in blood.

Before horror could consume her, she realized that it was not blood; it was sunset light. Coryn was his honest self, with rumpled hair and travel-stained clothes.

He was much more awake than she was. “I’ve been exploring. I found torches,” he said.

She nodded. There were no words in her. She took one of the torches, leaving him with the other two.

The sun was sinking fast. She did not need Coryn’s encouragement to follow him out of the open air into the dusty stillness of the Keep.

The shadows were thick there. Once or twice as they worked their way down from the tower, Merris thought she saw someone, or something, flitting around a corner. It must be a trick of the light.

No matter how often she told herself she had a right to be here, she felt more like an invader the farther down she went. She would have loved to run out the gate and away and never come back, but neither she nor Coryn paused there. They kept on going toward the entrance her maps had shown her, down below the gate in an empty and echoing hall.

Coryn lit the torches in that hall, laying a finger and a hard stare on each until it burst into flame. The light put the dark to flight but made the shadows somehow stronger. In its flicker, they seemed more like living shapes than ever.

Merris had to lead, since she knew the way. Coryn walked close behind her. He was a solid presence compared to the shadows that crowded thicker as they descended the narrow stair.

There was a cold smell in that place, like old stone and deep water. The air that breathed upward made the small hairs stand up on Merris’ body.

She desperately wanted to stop, turn, run back into the last of the daylight. Every part of her that was wise or prudent was shouting at her to do exactly that. But she had come to find out the truth. She had to know. She could not seal the bargain without some knowledge of what she was agreeing to.

And if it killed her?

Then it did. She had been bound to this since before she was born.

It was a long way down. Her legs were aching and her breath was coming hard, well before she came to the end of the stair. Her torch lit nothing but a tunnel carved out of the black rock, and steps descending below her.

They must be at least as far down as the river by now, if not even farther. She was stopping more often, and it was taking longer for her legs to stop shaking before she could go on.

Coryn had not said a word in all that descent. She kept looking back, terrified that he had vanished, or perhaps worse, that his spirit had been taken away and there was nothing left to follow her but an empty shell. Each time, he met her stare with one just as tired and almost as wild.

Just when she was about to give up, the steps ended. She almost fell down, but Coryn caught her and pulled her back onto her feet. He was breathing hard himself. Even in the ruddy torchlight his face was pallid.